She turns to see their old playmate Shantaram whose father’s farm used to be their picnic place. They spent entire days gambolling around it, plucking succulent vegetables off their creepers and eating them raw. When mango blossom turned into plump green fruit, they would bite into its crisp flesh dipped in salt and chilli powder, the sourness setting their teeth on edge. Anima nudges Ashesh, touches Janaki’s shoulder. All three rise and follow Shantaram. A barbed wire marks off his farm from the Joshi property. They bend under it as they always did to cross over to the other side. Shantaram’s wife brings them tea. His daughter and son lean against the door jambs and stare at them. A puff of breeze brings in the warm smell of cow dung and milk. A buffalo moos resonantly.

‘I’ve given up the old dairy business,’ Shantaram says as he slurps his tea. ‘I’ve kept just one buffalo for our needs.’ He jerks his head towards his children. ‘They aren’t interested in carrying on. The farm is there while we last. He can do what he wants with it afterwards.’

The boy listens with an expressionless face. ‘Our days are over, eh, Ashesh? Everything changed after Anna went away.’

‘Anna went away because everything was changing.’

‘Don’t know about that. If he’d stayed, the well would have remained open for everybody. These people closed it saying the missionaries had poisoned the water. No news of Anna, no?’

Ashesh shakes his head.

‘They say he has brought water, electricity and trees to a small village Satara side.’

Many such tales have made their way to Surgaon and nearby villages since Anna’s disappearance. Whenever a news item appears in the papers about some maverick do-gooder, he is instantly rumoured to be Anna. There is a strong belief that he will return one day as suddenly as he left, and everything will be as it was.

When Ashesh and Anima return to say goodbye to Sindhutai, Janaki asks if she may be excused from going up.

Sindhutai is peacefully asleep in her silk choli and her nine-yard sari. Ashesh calls out to her. She doesn’t move. ‘She is very tired.’ Dr Bhaskar sits beside her. ‘But she’ll be just fine tomorrow.’

‘I assume you read the reports we sent you,’ Ashesh says in a tight voice.

‘So you know what the diagnosis is,’ Anima says coldly.

‘Doesn’t worry me. We’ve asked a miraculous ayurvedic doctor from Vapi to visit. He’ll be here tomorrow. Even people in America have his medications flown to them.’

‘In America, you’d have been sued for not treating a patient with regular drugs.’

Dr Bhaskar laughs drily. ‘Let’s not talk about America. I spent twenty years there. So I know what a rotten society it is. But you don’t worry. I will personally bring her to Mumbai for your wedding. You’ll see.’

38